


Let the Bough Break

by Linsky



Series: My Heart Forgets to Beat [2]
Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linsky/pseuds/Linsky
Summary: Jonny never wanted to have kids.
Relationships: Patrick Kane/Jonathan Toews
Series: My Heart Forgets to Beat [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729813
Comments: 230
Kudos: 580





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dixieland33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixieland33/gifts).



> Very questionable decision-making in this story. I will remind everyone, though, that I am very fond of happy endings. :D
> 
> This won't make sense without the first story—definitely read that first!
> 
> ([Tumblrrrr](https://linskywords.tumblr.com))

Jonny never wanted to have kids.

It wasn’t really a consideration at all. Before Patrick, he figured he’d never be able to touch someone enough to have a kid with her, and after Patrick—well, it wasn’t like they were going to get each other pregnant.

“There’s adoption,” Patrick says. “Surrogacy.”

Jonny sighs. “It’s not about that.”

“ _Babies_ , Jonny,” Patrick says, and Jonny bites his lip and watches the road as Patrick drives. He gets it: Patrick grew up in a house full of kids, him and his sisters spilling out of every room. And Patrick’s so good with kids: Jonny’s seen the way he bends down to their level and gets all kind and gentle.

Jonny is not good with kids. But he also doesn’t want to be the reason Patrick doesn’t have what he wants. Patrick’s already given him—fuck, a million times more than Jonny ever thought he’d have. The past two and a half years with him have been better than the rest of Jonny’s life put together. 

“Patrick,” he says as they pull into a parking spot at the U.C. “I wouldn’t be able to touch them.”

Patrick turns the key in the ignition and then turns to Jonny. He raises a hand and runs it along Jonny’s face: the side of his cheek, his jaw. “You’ll touch me,” Patrick says. “And I’ll touch them enough for both of us.”

Jonny closes his eyes. He wants to believe that that’s true, just like he has every time they’ve had some variant on this conversation over the past couple of months. “Let’s talk about it after playoffs,” he says.

He’s not sure Patrick will actually drop it after that, but he does. Jonny catches him cooing over strangers’ babies a couple of times, but it’s not pointed—more like Patrick can’t help it. Jonny doesn’t want to take that away from him.

The worst part is, now that Patrick’s planted the idea, Jonny starts paying attention to the babies himself. They seem to be everywhere in the Chicago spring: going by in strollers when Jonny goes for his morning run; in line at Starbucks; in the crowd at the U.C., wearing their huge baby headphones. Jonny’s supposed to be focusing on the playoffs, but the babies keep catching his gaze and holding it.

There’s one night during the second series when Jonny comes out of the locker room—they’ve just beaten the Canucks 4-2—to find Patrick crouched on the ground, talking to someone’s toddler. The kid is barely old enough to stand on its own feet, chubby cheeks threatening to engulf its eyes, and it’s giggling madly while Patrick coos at it. It waves one baby hand around and gets a handful of Patrick’s curls and Jonny just—melts.

He leans against the wall, feeling like he’s been dealt a blow to the rib cage. Maybe he actually has; it was a rough game. But the hits on the ice were easier to take than Patrick smiling at this toddler like he’s making his own sunshine.

He wants to see Patrick like this with a kid of their own. A kid with Patrick’s curls, with his blue eyes and dimples, a kid they could watch grow up…

A kid Jonny could never come within two feet of.

“Are you okay?” Patrick’s in front of him, looking at him in alarm. Jonny’s not surprised; he probably looks pretty bad.

“Yeah,” he says, even though he’s not. They’re in the hallway where anyone could walk by, but he pulls Patrick into a hug anyway and holds on for a few long moments. Some things are worth it.

***

They win the Cup. 

_Patrick_ wins them the Cup. Jonny gets the Conn-Smythe, but it was Patrick who ultimately got them there. It was Patrick’s slick shot that gets the puck into the goal, his arms rising in victory before anyone was sure it was in, and Jonny wants to kiss him on the ice so badly he can’t bear it.

He doesn’t, of course. No one knows that Patrick’s his exception, and he doesn’t want that to be the topic of conversation in the wake of their Cup win. But Patrick skates around the ice, Cup held high over his head, face beaming and hair curling with sweat and Jonny can barely breathe for wanting to taste him.

He manages to restrain himself to a bone-cracking hug through their pads on the ice, and as soon as they’re back in the locker room with no media, Jonny pushes Patrick against his stall and kisses him as hard as he can.

“Get a room!” Sharpy calls from across the locker room, where he’s opening champagne.

Jonny ignores him and presses his forehead to Patrick’s. “You won us a Cup,” he breathes, and Patrick’s panting against him.

The night’s a long blur of alcohol (for the others) and flashbulbs and teammates just barely remembering not to throw themselves at Jonny, and when it’s over, Jonny presses into Patrick in bed and whispers, “Anything you want. Anything. You want a baby, I’ll— _anything_ , Patrick,” and Patrick moans and comes underneath him.

Jonny thinks about regretting his words, the next morning when he’s lying in bed stroking Patrick’s head to help with the hangover. It was a sex promise; Patrick wouldn’t hold him to it. But it feels right. It’s going to be so difficult in so many ways, but he can’t imagine a world in which he keeps Patrick from being a father.

Patrick turns over and stretches, warm and sleepy-eyed in the morning sunlight. “So, the thing you said last night,” he says.

Jonny bends to nuzzle his cheek. “Yeah,” he says. “I meant it.”

“Really?” Patrick’s smile is the full, glowing one Jonny only sees when they’re alone.

“Really.” Jonny kisses his mouth and whispers against his lips, “I want to see you holding a baby.”

“Jonny,” Patrick breathes, and if Jonny wasn’t sure about his decision before, the way Patrick kisses him back would be enough to convince him he’s right.


	2. Chapter 2

They talk about adoption, but Jonny’s sure about wanting the baby to be Patrick’s. “I’ll feel more like I’m connected to it, if I can touch you,” he says, even though he knows that doesn’t make a lot of sense. But it’s also true that adoption isn’t easy for people like them—for a gay couple, or for a single dad, if Patrick wants to play it that way. Hiring a surrogate would be lower-profile.

They end up asking their agent to help them find someone. “You’re sure you want to move ahead already?” Patrick asks when they’re headed out the door to meet their prospective surrogate. “We don’t have to do it right away.” But Jonny’s sure: he’s never liked waiting, when he knows the destination and there’s a clear way forward. And Veronica turns out to be sweet and lovely and to have just enough blond in her coloring that Jonny can hope for a baby with Patrick’s curls.

He calls his mom the day after it’s all decided. He and Patrick have just been talking about baby names, getting all excited about it, and maybe Jonny should be expecting his mom’s reaction, but he isn’t.

“ _Mon cher,_ ” she says after a long pause. He voice is full of concern. “Are you sure?”

Jonny’s a little thrown. He sees why she’d be worried, but—he’s giving her a grandchild. The thing he never thought he’d be able to give her. “Of course I’m sure,” he says.

“I understand that you’ve already made your plans,” she says. “I just hope that you’ll take the time to consider. I know what it is,” she adds, her voice gentle, “to have a child you can’t touch.”

Jonny’s gut clenches. He’s thought a little bit over the years—tried not to think too much—about what it must have been like for her, not able to touch him when he so desperately needed it. But it won’t be like that for their child. They won’t be untouched by the world; only by Jonny. “Patrick will touch them enough for both of us,” he says. Then, “It’s what he wants, _maman,_ so much.”

“And you’re very brave to give it to him,” his mom says. “You’ve led such a brave life, _cheri_. But I hope you think about what you’re getting into.”

Jonny has thought about it. He knows what he wants: Patrick, his face lighting up every day as he takes their baby into his arms. Patrick pouring his love into this new person in their lives. Jonny knows it will be tough, but it will also be worth it.

They do a lot of planning that summer. They decide to try for the first time in September, in case in takes a while, and Veronica gets pregnant on the first try. All of a sudden there’s something real to plan for, a baby who’ll be born at the end of the 2011-2012 playoffs.

“We can name it Stanley,” Patrick says, giggling, and Jonny doesn’t even bother to respond beyond a glare.

The season starts up, and they split their time between playing hockey and preparing for a baby. It feels like there’s no end to the things to be done: infinite baby products they’re supposed to own, and a nursery to set up, and books to read. There’s a surprise baby shower from the other Hawks, and then there are thank-you cards to be written and a dozen gag-gift breast pumps to give away.

The most important thing they do is line up help for Patrick. They would need to hire someone anyway, with both of them gone for so much of the hockey season. But with Jonny out of commission for hands-on baby duties, they need way more help than that.

“I feel bad that you have to do so much more of the work,” Jonny says. “I mean, obviously I’ll do whatever I can, but.”

Patrick nuzzles the side of his face. “You’ll be great,” he says. “ _We’ll_ be great. The two of us together? We’re gonna kill it.”

And yeah, of course they are. The two of them won a Cup together. There’s nothing they can’t do.

Patrick seems pretty chill about the prospect of the baby for most of the season. But as Veronica’s due date approaches, he gets more and more distractable, until by the night before he can’t focus on anything.

“You know she probably won’t actually have the baby tomorrow,” Jonny says when Patrick’s been bouncing around the living room for an hour.

“I know.” Patrick picks up the decorative puck he just put down, fiddles with it, puts it down again. “I just—what if something goes wrong?”

“Nothing’s gonna go wrong,” Jonny says. They don’t know that for sure, of course. But no one ever scored a Cup-winning goal by imagining failure.

“Right,” Patrick says. “But what if she tries to call us and can’t reach us? Or what if—”

“Hey.” Jonny catches him by the hand, reels him in. “Nothing’s gonna go wrong,” he repeats. “And if it does, we’ll deal with it.”

Patrick sags against him. “I know,” he says. “It’s just…I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Mm.” Jonny kisses the side of his jaw. “You know what they say helps the baby come faster?”

Patrick grins. “I don’t think that works if neither of you is the pregnant one,” he says, but he’s already walking backwards toward the bedroom, pulling his shirt off. Jonny follows, eyes trained on all that bare skin.

He’s just putting his hands down the back of Patrick’s underwear and his mouth on Patrick’s neck when his phone rings. _Always Be My Baby_ —the ringtone they set for Veronica. “Well,” Jonny mumbles against Patrick’s skin. “Told you it would work.”

They make it to the hospital in record time and settle down to wait. Well, Jonny settles down. Patrick bounces his knee up and down fast enough to shake the entire row of chairs, and goes back and forth from the hospital vending machine for snack food neither of them will eat.

Patrick’s family arrives before the baby does. Jonny’s parents decided to wait until the chaos was over before descending upon them, but Patrick’s parents and sisters must have gotten on a plane as soon as they got the text. They mob Patrick with hugs and Jonny with hellos, and then there’s a whole crowd of them clustered in the corner of the waiting room as they hours drag on. And on.

Jonny knows the nurse has come for them when Patrick’s hand clenches tight on his. She leads them back to Veronica, Jonny navigating carefully around the people in the halls, Patrick bursting with nervous energy. The delivery room itself is crowded with people: a doctor, some more nurses, Veronica in the bed, looking pale and tired but content. Jonny falls back, to avoid the people and to let Patrick go first. This is his night.

The doctor and nurses are crowded around a little table on wheels. There’s something between them, a wrapped bundle, and Patrick makes a beeline for them. Jonny watches his face. He doesn’t want to miss this.

One of the nurses turns, the blanket-wrapped bundle in his arms. Patrick takes it, and his face transforms: the anxious anticipation melting away, replaced a look of pure wonder. “Hi,” he whispers, his voice almost inaudible. He smiles down at her, and his smile is ridiculous; his smile is one Jonny wants to look at for the rest of his days. “Hi, Ailie.”

It’s symmetry, Jonny thinks in a flash. Three years ago Patrick gave Jonny the thing he wanted most in the world, the thing that was so impossible it took a miracle for him to have it. And now Patrick has a miracle of his own, this thing he’s always wanted. It’s perfect.

Then Jonny looks down, at the baby cradled in Patrick’s arms, and everything changes.

Jonny’s seen babies before. He hasn’t spent a lot of time looking at them, maybe. But he knows what they look like. He doesn’t know why the sight of this one hits him in the gut. She’s just—she’s so tiny. Her eyelids and nose and lips are all infinitesimally tiny and perfectly formed, and they all fit together into this whole tiny being who’s going to, somehow, grow into a real person. Jonny was just thinking of her as a miracle, but now the idea hits him in a whole new way. She’s fully alive, and she’s _theirs,_ and Jonny—

Jonny can’t touch her.

It’s okay. It’s okay. He knew that. He just didn’t expect it to make him feel like this: like his arms are aching for lack of reaching out. Like he can’t quite breathe for wanting.

“Hi, baby,” Patrick whispers, smoothing a hand over her downy head, and Jonny has no air. He can’t even feel: nothing beyond this desperate drowning desire.

Fortunately, there’s enough commotion that no one notices his reaction. The doctor steps in, wants to do something else to Ailie, and then they need to get out of the room so that Veronica can rest. In the hallway, the rest of the family crowds around them, and Jonny can melt into the background and catch his breath.

It’s been so long since he felt like this. It used to happen sometimes before Patrick: late at night, when his guard was down, it would creep up on him and open a hole in his gut. Patrick filled the hole, Patrick with his love and his touches and his way of grinning just a little sideways, and Jonny almost forgot what it felt like to need like that. Now he looks at his baby daughter as she’s passed into loving arms that aren’t his, and it all comes roaring back.

“Jonny,” Patrick says. He’s standing in front of him, beaming. “Isn’t she amazing?”

He wraps his arms around Jonny, squeezing tight. Jonny hugs him back and thanks his lucky stars that Patrick’s too distracted to notice that the tightness of Jonny’s arms is due to an entirely different emotion. “Yeah,” he says, hearing the choking sound in his own voice. “Yeah, she really is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Ailie is a traditional Irish (and also Scottish) girl's name, pronounced eye-lee. I figured Patrick might want an Irish name and also I just really like it. :)


	3. Chapter 3

They take Ailie home the next morning. Patrick’s sisters come with them, and they all pile into the car with the carseat in the back, everyone laughing and happy and shushing each other, and Jonny is fine.

He’s fine. Maybe he’s not talking as much as the others, but there are good reasons for that: he’s focusing on driving. Patrick is craned over the back of the passenger seat to see Ailie and talk to his sisters, and Jonny can’t do that, obviously. And they got so little sleep last night. On Patrick and his sisters, that manifests as a bright excited kind of exhaustion, and it just sits differently on Jonny. That’s all.

He’s very aware of having Ailie in the backseat as he drives. He’s never taken turns so carefully in his life.

She’s such a good baby. She sleeps through the drive from the hospital, even with the hubbub around her, and when they get to the condo, she mewls a little and Patrick scoops her up in his arms, snug in a soft pink terrycloth blanket. Her little face is smushed against the neck of his polo, cheeks flushed with sleep.

Jonny looks away. He has to take a different elevator anyway, for safety.

It’s amazing how the condo seems to have shrunk in size since they left. There are the same number of adults in it, but Ailie seems to magnify everything, and everywhere Jonny looks, someone’s holding her. Someone’s arms are wrapped around her, their hands tickling her little feet, their fingers held out for her to squeeze. Every face he looks at is glowing with the joy of picking her up.

He busies himself in tidying up instead. Ailie’s baby things seem to have multiplied tenfold. Within an hour of her being back, every surface in the apartment is littered with spit-up cloths and blankets and stuffed animals. The Kanes brought her presents, new onesies and toys, and those are lying around, too, with the crumpled wrapping paper they came in. Jonny picks it all up and tidies it away, even though he knows everything will be messy again five minutes later. He doesn’t mind: it’s something to do with his hands.

Ailie has a bottle an hour or so after they get back. Tiki holds her to give it to her. Ailie’s so small she nestles just along the length of his forearm, and Jonny’s never had a major a problem with Tiki before, has always gotten along with him well enough, but looking at the softness in his eyes as Ailie sucks on a bottle from his hand, Jonny has a sudden strong urge to punch him in the face.

He goes to tidy up the dining room instead. That’s where Patrick finds him a few minutes later, slipping away from his family and coming up to put a hand on Jonny’s back. “Hey, you don’t have to clean all that up right now,” he says, his touch easy like it always is. “Come spend time with her.”

“Sure,” Jonny says. He can do that. And then—he’s not sure what happens, but there must be something, because suddenly Patrick’s turning towards him more fully, his whole focus snapping to him.

“Jonny.” Patrick’s hand goes to his arm. “What is it?”

“What?” Jonny says. “I’m fine.”

There’s a burst of laughter from the living room. “Patrick,” Jackie calls, “come see this picture Mom found of you as a baby. She looks just like you.”

Patrick doesn’t look away. “Jonny?” he says again.

“It’s nothing,” Jonny says, but even he can tell his voice isn’t convincing.

Jackie pokes her head into the dining room. “What are you guys doing in here? Come on, you have to see this, it’s so good.”

“One sec, Jackie,” Patrick says, and pulls Jonny out of the room, around the corner and into their pantry.

It’s a big pantry, plenty of room for two people to stand, but it’s still startling to be in this small space with a door between them and the crowd. “But—Ailie,” Jonny says.

“She’s with my mom,” Patrick says. “She’ll be fine. What’s wrong?”

Sometimes Jonny forgets how stubborn Patrick can be. This is the guy who was a first-overall NHL draft pick at five-foot-nine. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Really? Because that’s not what it looked like.”

Jonny looks away from Patrick, at a collection of gluten-free pasta. He could say—what? That this is nothing different from what they planned for, but Jonny can’t handle it? That he didn’t anticipate wanting to hold his own child?

He could say that. He feels the words forming in his head without him reaching for them. But he doesn’t want to. Not yet.

“No, it’s really fine,” he says instead. “I just, I don’t know. It’s all just a little overwhelming, you know?”

Patrick’s face softens. “Yeah, of course.” He squeezes Jonny’s hands. “Lots of people to try not to touch.”

“Exactly,” Jonny says.

Patrick forehead-butts him in the shoulder. “We’ll get you some alone time with Ailie soon, okay? And feel free to hide for a little if you want. I’ll keep my family busy.”

“Sure,” Jonny says.

Patrick goes for the door, then pauses with his hand on the knob and looks back. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Of course,” Jonny says, and Patrick grins and goes out to the kitchen. Jonny stays behind for a minute, leaning against the shelf of protein powder, feeling sick.

***

By the time the Kanes go to their hotel that night Jonny feels bruised, like he just got off a string of rough games. Patrick puts Ailie to bed after they leave, and he has her wave to Jonny as they head off to the bedroom, saying, “Say goodnight to your daddy, Ailie!”

“Goodnight,” Jonny says, his hands clenched at his sides. Patrick smiles and heads into the bedroom with her, and Jonny goes and lies down in the dark.

It’s a rough night. For Patrick, mostly: the nanny doesn’t start for a couple of weeks, so Patrick has to get up for all the feedings, which are never more than an hour and a half apart. Jonny half wakes up every time he staggers out of bed. They’re both exhausted by the morning, but Patrick has truly scary circles under his eyes. “You’re lucky you can’t do this part,” Patrick says the next morning as he pours coffee into the biggest cup they have, and Jonny nods and doesn’t say anything.

The thing is, he knows he needs to tell Patrick about this. He knows what it feels like when there’s one particular idea that’s pressing on his mind so much that he’s going to have to let it out eventually. But there’s no need to say it just now. He can keep it hidden for a little while longer. Unsaid, and therefore less real. 

Besides, there’s plenty more to do. Jonny left the condo in pretty good shape yesterday, but one extra baby and five extra adults means the mess multiplies all on its own. Jonny folds towels: lines up the ends, folds them in half, folds them in quarters, and doesn’t have to think about anything else. Just let his hands do the work. When that’s done, move on to the next task.

“You’ve been working so hard,” Donna says to him that evening, when Jonny’s doing the dishes after dinner. “Why don’t you go relax, let me take care of that?”

“No thanks, I’ve got it,” he says, firmly enough that he hopes she won’t object. “You go into the living room with the others.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” she says. She smiles at him, warm. “You’re so good to do this. You’re going to be such a good father.”

In the other room, Jonny can hear Ailie crying, the cry that probably means someone’s going to take her in their arms and rock her to sleep. He turns up the water so that he can’t hear it as well.

Jonny’s parents are arriving the next morning, after another night of interrupted sleep for Jonny and Patrick. Jonny still finds the energy to be nervous—not that he thinks anything bad is going to happen. “It just feels like…a lot on top of everything else,” he says when Patrick calls him on being quieter than usual at breakfast.

“Well, it’s not like we need to entertain them or anything,” Patrick says, yawning over his toast. “They’re just here to see Ailie.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Jonny says.

Jonny’s parents arrive with hugs for Patrick and smiles for Jonny. “And where’s our granddaughter?” Jonny’s dad asks before they’ve even put their luggage down.

Ailie’s just woken up from a nap and is blinking sleepily at the world, her little arms stirring. Andrée holds her, and then Bryan, both of them exclaiming over how tiny she is, how soft her skin.

Jonny’s never felt her skin. Never felt anyone else’s skin except Patrick’s—not since he was old enough to remember. It hadn’t occurred to him that a baby’s skin would feel different from someone else’s, but of course it would, just like the soft skin on Patrick’s inner thighs feels different from the soles of his feet. He tries to imagine how much softer Ailie’s skin must be than that—tries to conjure in his mind the feeling of touching it, like his dad is doing now. He can’t make himself feel it; can only watch his dad do it, the way he cups his hand around her head with its wispy tuft of hair, his fingers stroking slightly.

Jonny can feel his mom’s eyes on him. He looks away, putting a smile on his face. “Who wants lunch?” he says.

He avoids his mom’s eyes as they all go into the kitchen. She’s always been able to read him way too well.

They all have lunch together, Jonny and Patrick and both families, and then everyone clears out so that Patrick and Ailie can have naps. Jonny’s parents go to check in at their hotel; the Kanes go sightseeing. Patrick goes to lie down—“I gotta sleep when she does, man, or I’m not gonna make it”—and then, when the apartment is empty except for them, Jonny sneaks into Ailie’s room.

He’s done this a few times already, when she’s sleeping and there’s no one around. It’s better, seeing her when no one else is holding her. Jonny can stand next to her crib and watch her little chest rise and fall and feel like the closest person in the world to her.

She’s so amazing to look at. Jonny thought, when he first saw her, that the power of that first glimpse would fade. It’s not like there’s a lot more to see each time he looks at her. There kind of is, though: her face is constantly doing something, and even now, when she’s asleep, he feels like he can look at her for hours and still see something new. There’s this whole person living in this tiny body, and he can’t get over the miracle of it.

This is so different from anything else he’s ever felt. Before Patrick, he never let himself get close enough to anyone to want them in particular. And after Patrick—well, wanting Patrick meant wanting what was already in his arms. Jonny’s never felt this particular thing: that there’s one person he needs to touch, desperately, and can’t.

It’s torture, thinking like this. Half of Jonny thinks he should pull himself away: there’s more laundry to do, Ailie’s sheets from a diaper accident this morning, and Jonny could do that instead. But he can’t bring himself to leave. She’s sleeping so peacefully, her breath whistling in and out of her tiny nose, and when he stands like this, listening to her breathing, he can pretend they’re sharing something. Like they’re connected for real, even though there are multiple feet between them. His baby breathes in, and he breathes with her, and he feels like he’s touching her somehow. Almost. As close as he can get.

A noise from the doorway makes him jump back. “Oh, hey,” Patrick says. “I was hoping you’d find some time to be alone with her. I didn’t know if you…”

He trails off, his eyes on Jonny’s face. His expression changes.

Jonny wasn’t expecting anyone. He wasn’t ready to hide what was on his face. “I thought you’d be asleep for another hour,” he says weakly.

“You’re not okay,” Patrick says, stepping into the room.

Jonny doesn’t want to have this conversation. He’s not ready. “I’ll be fine,” he says.

“No.” Patrick takes Jonny’s arm. “You need—I mean, you don’t have to tell me things if you don’t want to. But there’s something serious going on. You can’t just pretend it’s nothing.”

“I’ll be—”

“Do you regret it?” Patrick asks. “Is that it? Do you wish we hadn’t had her?”

Jonny recoils, so shocked he can’t speak for a moment. “What? _No._ ”

Patrick’s grip relaxes a little. “You’re miserable, though,” he says. “You can’t deny it.”

“Patrick.” Jonny squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel them: the things he needs to say to Patrick. It’s going to hurt so much to say them, but he can’t keep them inside much longer. “Patrick, I can’t _touch_ her.”

There’s a short silence. “Right,” Patrick says uncertainly, like he’s waiting for more.

“I don’t think you get what it’s like,” Jonny says. He feels like the words are scraping his throat on their way out. “ _I_ didn’t get what it would be like. I can’t touch her, I can’t hold her, and I thought it would be okay, but it’s—every day. Every week, every month, all the years of her life, it’ll never change and I’ll never be able to touch her and I _need_ —fuck, Patrick, I—”

Patrick takes him in his arms. “Sweetheart,” he breathes.

Jonny buries his face in Patrick’s shoulder. He tries to control the jerking of his breath.

“You should have told me,” Patrick whispers.

“I couldn’t.” The words are a gasp. “I couldn’t. The more I say it, the more it feels—”

“Real,” Patrick finishes for him. “Shit, Jonny, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not,” Jonny says fiercely. Not that Ailie was born. The other parts—

“Yeah,” Patrick says, low. He smooths his hands up Jonny’s back, over the jolting of his unsteady breathing. “Shit,” he says again. “We really didn’t get it, did we? What we were doing to you.”

Jonny doesn’t say anything. He lets himself be held, lets Patrick’s hands stroke the shudders out of him.

“We’ll fix it, okay?” Patrick says. “We’ll figure something out. We’re not gonna let it feel this bad forever. We’re gonna come up with something to make it better.”

“Okay,” Jonny whispers, but he doesn’t believe it. There’s nothing anyone can do to fix this.


	4. Chapter 4

Patrick is true to his word. He does try to come up with solutions, to the problem that can’t be solved.

It’s so hard, watching him try. Jonny knows how terrible he feels, and it makes Jonny feel worse, because he knows there’s no solution. Not a real one, not one that will make Jonny happy the way Patrick wants him to be. Now, every moment that it hurts, he knows Patrick can feel it, too.

“What about foam?” Patrick asks. “Thick enough to protect her, but thin enough that you can still feel something through it.”

Jonny’s already shaking his head. “Thin enough to feel anything, and it’ll hurt her.”

“Hockey gloves,” Patrick says. “You don’t hurt people when you touch them on the rink.”

“You really want me to handle our infant daughter in gloves where the fingers don’t bend all the way?” Jonny asks.

Patrick grimaces. “Point.”

They try Jonny holding Ailie while she’s in her car carrier. Technically, it does work. Jonny can hold her and even carry her around safely with a thick layer of hard plastic between them. Which is good for practical purposes, but it doesn’t feel like anything. It feels like worse than nothing: Ailie is eight inches away, and she has no idea he’s holding her. He might as well be another part of the car seat.

Patrick takes one look at Jonny’s face, while he’s sitting there holding her rigidly in his arms, and picks up the carrier and puts it down on the couch next to them. “Okay, we’ll try something else.”

He does try something else later that afternoon, when Ailie’s ready to be put down for a nap and Jonny’s hiding in the master bedroom, trying to pretend he’s not avoiding their extended families. Patrick comes in with Ailie in his arms. He sits down on the bed in front of Jonny and settles against him, his back against Jonny’s front.

“Here,” Patrick says, while Jonny’s arms come up automatically to hold him. “You can hold her this way.”

It’s better than the car seat. There’s no denying that. At least Jonny’s holding someone, instead of hard molded plastic. He can smell Patrick, so familiar, as well as the fresh scent of the baby powder they use on Ailie. He should feel good, holding the two of them, their family united like this. But he looks at Ailie over Patrick’s shoulder, and all he can feel is jealous.

He’s jealous all the time these days, it feels like. Jealous that Patrick is the one with his hands on her. Jealous that Patrick is the one who gets to cradle her in his arms and keep her warm and happy and safe. Even jealous that Patrick gets to feed her and change her, which is ridiculous, because Jonny knows how much work it is.

He can see it: the exhaustion deepening in Patrick’s face every day. Their families are helping a lot, but an infant is just a lot of work, and Patrick’s still on the night shift. Which means he’s not really sleeping.

Jonny tries to help as much as he can. He does as many non-contact chores as he can during the day. At night, he gets up when Patrick does—but all he can really offer is moral support, and he knows it’s not enough.

Patrick gets it, obviously. He knows what Jonny’s dealing with. But Jonny also knows it’s hard on him, especially as the days drag on and Patrick gets more and more tired.

“Ugh,” Patrick says at the beginning of the second week, when they’ve gotten up to change Ailie and found her poop overflowing her diaper. “This is seriously gross. Can you watch her while I go clean up a little?”

Jonny blinks at him. “Not really,” he says slowly.

“Obviously, I don’t mean—” Patrick blows his hair up where it’s flopping over his forehead. “You don’t actually have to do anything. She can’t even roll over yet. You’re just not supposed to leave them on the changing table alone. Just, like, keep an eye on her?”

Jonny bites his lip. It’s pretty low-risk, as situations go. She’s too young to really move. But what if she starts flailing? What if she spits up, and he can’t lift her head or anything? He doesn’t think babies choke on their own spit-up, but he can’t remember. And there might be other problems. Anything goes wrong, even a little bit, and Jonny won’t be able to do anything about it.

“I just…don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says.

“Fine,” Patrick says shortly. “Why don’t you just go back to bed?”

Jonny blinks for a moment. “Sure,” he says finally.

He climbs back into their bed and wraps himself tight in the blanket to try to get warm. He’s not sure why he feels like this. It’s not like he and Patrick don’t ever snap at each other. They have, plenty of times. But Jonny doesn’t remember it ever hitting him like this before. He wraps himself tighter in the blanket.

It’s maybe fifteen minutes before Patrick comes back to bed. Jonny wants to draw away when he feels him climbing under the covers—but he knows that’s not going to make anything better. He stays where he is and waits to see if Patrick will come to him.

Patrick does, right away. “I’m sorry,” he says, burrowing into Jonny’s arms. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Jonny lets out a long, slow breath. “No,” he agrees. “You shouldn’t have.”

“It wasn’t okay. I know that. I just…” He presses his forehead to Jonny’s chest. “Fuck, Jonny. I’m just so fucking exhausted all the time.”

Jonny knows that. He feels it every time Patrick drags himself out of bed, and Jonny wants to volunteer to go in his place but can’t. “We gotta change something,” he says.

Patrick gives a little laugh. “What, though? Like you said. You can’t really do anything.”

It stings, even if it’s only what Jonny already knows. “We’ll find you other help,” he says. “Emma’s supposed to start next week. I can call her in the morning, see if she’s up for starting earlier.”

“Yeah,” Patrick says, yawning against Jonny’s chest, stubble scraping. “Yeah, that would be good. Thank you.”

It’s something. It’ll make life easier for Patrick. But it doesn’t do much to shake Jonny’s guilt. He cuddles up to Patrick and closes his eyes, but he can’t help thinking, as he drifts off, that this would all be easier on Patrick if he had a different partner. Someone who could help him with the baby.

Someone who wasn’t Jonny.

***

Jonny does call Emma the next morning. She agrees to start in two days, and to work nights. It will take care of Patrick’s problem, partly. But it doesn’t make Jonny feel a lot better.

He just can’t shake the thought he had last night: that he’s not adding anything here, really. He can’t help with Ailie. He can’t hold her like a parent should. All he’s contributing is pain: his own, Patrick’s, even Ailie’s when she gets old enough to realize what she’s not getting.

He tries to put the thought out of his head, but he’s distracted all day, his timing off every time someone talks to him. He knows it’s obvious to everyone. Patrick tries to talk to him about it, but Jonny doesn’t know what to say about it. He doesn’t even want to be thinking it, but he can’t stop.

It’s not a surprise when his mom comes to find him when he’s doing the dishes after dinner. It’s only a surprise it took her this long. “You could leave those for later,” she says.

“It’s risotto, it will stick,” he says. Plus, this way he doesn’t have to be in the living room with everyone. She probably already knows that, though.

She takes the plate he just put in the drying rack and starts to dry it. “New parenthood is an adjustment,” she says.

“Mm,” Jonny says. It’s true, of course. In his case, though, it’s not a question of adjusting. There’s nothing that’s going to change.

“I remember when you and David were little,” she says. “It felt like every day was a whole new world. Of course, that meant every day had its own challenges.”

Jonny wishes she would get to the point. He knows she was right, and by now she must know it too: that he didn’t think through carefully enough what it would be like to have a baby in his circumstances. He wishes she would just come out and say it already.

“ _Mon cher,_ ” she says. She turns as he holds out the pot to her, but instead of taking it, she leaves her hands on top of it, so that their hands are pressed together across it. “I do not pretend to understand what you are going through. The trouble with you did not arise until you were three. I was able to touch both my babies, hold them, feed them. I cannot imagine what it must be like for you.”

Jonny wants to turn away. He feels like he shouldn’t, though. Like that would be giving too much away.

“I only wish to say this,” she says. “I told you I know what it is to have a child you cannot touch. I have also spent nearly two decades raising that child. It was very challenging, very painful at times, but I believe I was able to raise him so that he knew I loved him, and was able to return that love to me. I felt his love, even if I could not feel his touch. So I will say this to you: I know it is possible. I know, because I have done it. And so will you.”

Jonny opens his mouth to speak a couple of times before he manages it. “You don’t think,” he says, his voice rough. “You don’t think—the family would have been better without that child in it?”

He sees her falter. Her voice when she speaks, though, is soft but firm. “I do not,” she says. “I have never once thought that. And I do not think anyone who knows that child would say anything other than that their life is richer for having him in it.”

Jonny sucks air through gritted teeth. He stands there, gripping cold steel, and his mom stands with him, holding his hands across eight inches of hollow metal, until his breathing has evened out. Finally, she brushes a kiss against a Kleenex and hands it to him before she walks out of the room.

***

Jonny feels shaken and raw after that. He goes to bed early, to avoid dealing with anyone. He expects to lie awake for hours, but he ends up dropping off almost immediately, too exhausted to stay awake.

He wakes up when Ailie starts making noise over the baby monitor. Patrick is in bed next to him, still asleep, not aware of it yet. Jonny sits frozen for a moment, then snags the baby monitor and leaves the room.

He detours to the hall closet to grab a pair of hockey gloves and then goes to Ailie’s room. This might be a terrible idea. But he can pull back at any time. If it seems like Ailie needs more than he can safely give her, he can always call for Patrick. And he wants to at least try.

Ailie’s crying fretfully when he gets to her room, but there’s no telltale diaper stench. That’s good: he definitely couldn’t have handled changing her diaper.

“You want a drink, baby?” he whispers, resting the hockey glove against the side of her head. It doesn’t make her stop crying; it probably doesn’t feel anything like skin at all. But Patrick can’t always make her stop crying by picking her up, either. Jonny can do this.

He goes to the kitchen and prepares a bottle. He’s done this part before, dozens of times. When he goes back to Ailie’s room, she’s crying again, loud enough that he’s worried she’ll wake Patrick even without the monitor. “Sh, sh,” he says. He gently maneuvers the hockey glove under her head so that he can hold her a little more upright. “Look, I made a nice bottle for you, see?”

It’s not the easiest thing in the world to maneuver a bottle into a baby’s mouth through the thickness of a hockey glove. Jonny hasn’t been playing hockey for most of his life for nothing, though. He gets it in one.

Ailie starts sucking right away. It feels almost like a miracle, how fast it makes her quiet down. Jonny lets out a long, slow breath.

His heart is beating fast. He can feel the weight of her head in his palm, heavy in the glove. Her mouth is working against the bottle, her eyes are shut. She’s mostly lying on the bed, but it feels a little like she’s in his hands.

He watches her the whole time it takes her to drink her fill. It doesn’t get even a little bit boring. Jonny feels breathless, like there’s a flower blooming in his chest, petals unfurling.

He’s feeding her. Not pretending to, not acting vicariously, not preparing the bottle in the background. He’s really doing it.

When she stops sucking at the bottle, he takes it away but leaves his hand under her head. He curls his other hand over her belly and just stays there, feeling the quiet in the room. Maybe he should let her go to sleep, but he doesn’t want to step away. This moment feels precious: just him and Ailie, her full belly rising and falling softly under his glove.

Her hair is starting to curl a little over her forehead, a tiny blond wisp like Patrick’s. He wants to touch it, so he does, moving the thumb of his glove so that it touches the end of the wisp. She’s going to grow up to be beautiful like Patrick—but she’s not just his. She’s Jonny’s, too.

This is what his mom was telling him. Ailie is here, and she’s theirs, and maybe it’s going to hurt every day for the rest of his life, but that doesn’t cancel anything out. It doesn’t mean he gets to walk away.

“I guess we’re in this, baby girl,” Jonny whispers, before he even knows he’s going to speak. “You and me. I’m gonna be your dad, and maybe I can’t do all the stuff other dads can do, but I’m gonna love you _so_ much. Just like your grandma did for me, okay? I’m gonna love you so much you never forget it, and I’m gonna see you grow up, and it’s gonna be awesome.”

She moves her head a little, clearly starting to fall asleep even with Jonny’s hands on her. Maybe because of Jonny’s hands on her. He wants to be able to take the glove off and feel that motion with his hand, but it’s okay that he can’t. Not totally okay. But he loves her, and he’s going to make it be okay enough.

He starts to pull his hands away, slowly so that he won’t startle her. But he must not go slowly enough, because she kicks her leg. Kicks hard, right at his wrist.

Right at—right _into_ the space where his sleeve meets his glove.

Jonny pulls away so fast he crashes his head into the mobile above the crib. Maybe she didn’t touch—no, but she did. He felt it. He waits for the cry.

He’s expecting a scream. A wail so loud it wakes Patrick. And Ailie does open her eyes, and she does make a noise—but not the cry he was waiting for. It’s just a whimper. Like she’s confused, like she’s startled by his movement. Not like she’s in pain at all.

Jonny waits, barely breathing. He knows what he felt. He knows what should happen. But it keeps not happening, and not happening, and finally—

He shouldn’t. He knows he shouldn’t. There’s a chance he could be wrong. But there’s no other way to find out, and he feels like his head is going to explode.

He shakes off his glove and touches Ailie’s arm. Just the tip of his finger, the barest touch—the kind that wouldn’t hurt for more than a second. The kind that would make a stranger on the street yelp but not scream.

Nothing. Ailie moves her head a little, restless, and stays silent.

Jonny falls to his knees in front of the crib.

***

Patrick finds them the next morning. At that point, Jonny’s in the rocking chair in the corner of the nursery, Ailie cradled in his arms. His eyes ache with tiredness, and his ass is numb from sitting on the wood for hours, and he has absolutely zero desire to be anywhere else.

Patrick stops in the doorway and gapes. With good reason: Jonny has one arm around Ailie, nothing but a thin blanket and shirt sleeve between them. His other hand is cupping her head.

“What the fuck,” Patrick says.

Jonny beams at him. He can’t help it. He feels like he’s been plugged into a fuel line all night: filling up on touch, a pipeline pouring into him and filling up the gaping hole he thought would stand empty forever. Full to overflowing on Ailie. “She’s your daughter,” he says, his voice cracking. “Pat, she’s _yours_.”

Patrick comes up to them kneels down on the floor. “Thank fucking God,” he breathes, and Jonny kisses him, and holds their daughter tight, and laughs until tears pour down his cheeks.


End file.
